Eylau: Precis Des Travaux de la Grande Armée

Combat of Golymin

Combat at Golymin

While the corps of Benigsen was in Pultusk and was beaten there, that
of Buxhowden met in Golymin, at midday. Panin’s division of this corps
which had been attacked by the grand-duke of Berg, another division
which had been beaten in Nasielsk, arrived by a different way to the
camp at Golymin.

The marshal Davoust who followed the enemy from Nasielsk, reached it,
charged it and cleared a wood and meadows of them near the camp in Golymin.

At the same time, the marshal Augereau arriving from Golaczima, took
the enemy in flank. The brigadier general, Lapisse, with the 16th.
light infantry, cleared with the bayonet a village which was used as
point of support to the enemy. Heudelet’s division was spread and gone
to him. At three hours after midday, the fire became hotter. The grand-duke
of Berg conducted with greatest success several charges, in which the
division of Klein’s dragons was distinguished. However the night arriving
too early, the combat continued up to eleven hours of the evening.
The enemy made his retirement in disorder, leaving his artillery, his
luggage, almost all his bags, and many dead. All the enemy columns
were withdrawn on Ostrolenka.

The General Fenerolle, commanding a brigade of dragons, was killed
by a musket ball. The intrepid General Rapp, aide-de-camp of the Emperor,
was wounded by a blow of rifle while at the head of his division of
dragons. Colonel Sémélé, of the brave 24th. line, was wounded.
The marshal, Augereau had a horse killed under him.

However the marshal, Soult, with his army corps was already in Molati,
within two miles of Makow; but the horrible mud, the continuation of
the rains and the thaw, stopped his progress and saved the Russian army,
who would not have escaped with one man without this accident. The
destinies of the army of Benigsen and that of Buxhowden were to finish
on this side of the small river of Orcye; but all movements were opposed
by the effects of the thaw, so much so that artillery took up to two
days to make three miles. However the Russian army lost 80 pieces of
gun, all its caissons, more than twelve hundred carts of luggage and
twelve thousand killed men, wounded or made captive. The movements
of the French columns will be an object of sharp curiosity for the soldiers,
when they are traced on the chart. One will see there with how it little
needed to be done to take all this army and to destroy it in few days:
and that by the effect of only one fault of the Russian General.

We lost eight hundred men killed, and we had two thousand wounded.
Master of most of enemy artillery, of all the enemy positions, having
pushed back the enemy more than 40 miles, the Emperor put his army in
winter quarter.

Before this offensive, the Russian officers said that they had a hundred
and fifty thousand men; today they claim of to have had only half that.
Who are we to believe, the Russian officers before the battle, or of
the officers Russian after the battle?

Persia and the Door declared war on Russia. Michelson attacks the
Door. These two great Empires, close to Russia, are tormented by the
fallacious policy of the cabinet of Saint-Petersburg, who has acted
for ten years on their premises as it made during fifty years in Poland.

Mr. Philippe Ségur, warrant officer of the house of the Emperor, going
to Nasielsk, fell into an ambush from Cossacks who had placed themselves
in a house in the wood that is behind Nasielsk. He killed two with
his hand out of them, but he was made prisoner. The Emperor made a
claim, but the Russian General on-the-field had directed him on to Saint-Petersburg.